Chiaroscuro
by The Curious Kills
Summary: The characters you know take on different roles in this 19th-century retelling of the movie. The daughters of a deceased Norwegian inventor and his wife, Elsa and Anna Lyssinn, decide to exhibit their father's creations on the eve of Elsa's twenty-first birthday. As two uninvited gentlemen enter the story, a terrible secret is revealed; mischief and treachery ensue.
1. Prologue

- PROLOGUE -

Imagine a world that runs on the power of steam.

Imagine a world of horseless carriages, ships that sail on the clouds rather than on the water, mechanical servants and soot-filled skies where the magic of science renders the magic of fantasy obsolete. Instead of knights in shining armor, there are gun-slingers and fast-talkers; instead of beautiful princesses waiting in towers to be rescued, there are finely-clad, corseted ladies who speak for themselves and wait for no man. Here, the pen is mightier than the sword, and the fear of God has been replaced with the fear of what one man can do to another.

In this steam-powered wonderland, there are dark things, dark desires and ambitions that fill the hearts of men, and woe are those who have not partaken in this darkness, for they are the victims.

Listen well, my readers, and pay attention, for this story will move fast into the realm of gray, where the good become evil and the evil... Well, my friend, you will simply have to read on and see for yourself.

**. . .**

Our story takes place in a city called Arendelle, the mercantile capital of an unnamed country of eastern Europe, and takes place in the forgotten years when art belonged to scientific discovery and the wonders of modern invention had only just begun. Living in this capital at this certain time was a happily-married gentleman named Konrad Lyssinn, an inventor and well-known mechanical craftsman married to his loving wife, Gisela. Together they cared for their two daughters, Elsa, the oldest, and Anna, the youngest.

Anna was a cheerful and innocent little girl, with beautiful auburn hair and shining, sky-blue eyes. Like any child at her age, she was very affectionate and silly and loved to wake up with the sun and play until she, like that burning great orb, grew weary and slept through the night.

Elsa, however, was a logical child, collected and responsible even when she got into mischief with her baby sister. Her hair was an unusual platinum color, as white as snow, and her eyes were the color of the deep ocean and glittered like Austrian crystals. This, however, was not all that was abnormal about her. She also had a power, the origins of which were unexplainable, to connect with an unseen energy and bring her father's dead inventions to life. Mr. Lyssinn would often find his daughter entertaining her sister with manifestations of flying cranes and butterflies summoned from the metal scraps in his basement workroom.

Elsa and Anna were very close when they were young, and would often play together in the workroom when everyone else was asleep, despite their parents' wishes to the contrary. After all, there are dangerous things in a place where metal is carved into cams and spokes and chemicals are brought to a boil. However, nothing had so far happened to these happy little girls, so they paid their parents' warnings no heed and continued to play where they shouldn't.

One early morning as the sun was just beginning to peak over the chimneys and rooftops of Arendelle, Anna woke up and quickly threw back the bedclothes, running across the room to her sister's bed and pounced.

"Elsa!" she whispered, and then called a little louder, "Elsa! Wake up!"

Her sister stirred under the covers for a moment but made no indication that she had heard.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" Anna demanded, shaking her sister's should until finally she procured a response.

"Anna, go back to sleep."

"I just can't," Anna replied, laying down by her sister and throwing an arm against her forehead, "The sky's awake, so I'm awake... So we have to play!"

"Go play by yourself," Elsa responded, and with a shove derailed her sister from the bed. Anna fell on the floor with a thump and frowned for a moment, pouting until she gathered the spirit to try again. Crawling back onto the tall mattress, Anna gently brushed her sister's alabaster bangs from her eyes and leaned forward to whisper:

"Do you want to build a robot?"

**. . . **

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is something new for me, and I would like to get as much honest feedback as possible on this. In case you haven't already guessed, this is a steampunk retailoring of the movie "Frozen", told in a style that is intended to mimic the literary style of the day. I grew up reading books that were written like this, from the short stories in the McGuffy Reader to collections of short stories by such 19th century legends as Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe.

This story is also intended to help me visualize a cosplay series I am designing, portraying each of the characters (including my least-favorite character, Olaf) as heroes and villains from the 1800s. I love the steampunk aesthetic with all my heart, so I hope that I can do this theme justice.

Don't read it if you don't want to. I understand that the 1800's weren't for everyone, and I'm not exactly a master of this style anyway. If you want to see more, please follow this story and leave a comment so I can do my best to meet your expectations!

I thank all of you.

The Curious Kills


	2. Prologue (cont'd)

A smile slowly grew upon Elsa's face and her eyes opened. Quickly, she leaped from the bed, donned her blue dressing gown and took her little sister's hand as Anna led her down the hall and onto the staircase, her excited laughter echoing through the silent house. Soon they faced the large wooden door and came to a stop; they knew their father had locked it the night before as a precaution.

"Do the magic! Do the magic!" Anna demanded.

After Elsa unlocked the entrance to the workroom with a wave of her hand, Anna rushed past her and threw open the door, hurrying into the dystopia of hardware and dancing about with happiness in her little nightgown.

"Okay," said Elsa, "Are you ready?"

Anna giggled and nodded her head, beaming with anticipation.

Placing her eyes upon the pile of scraps and rubble their father didn't use anymore, Elsa concentrated, pointed at them and summoned them with a wave of her hand. Instantly, the fragments rose, folding like paper puppets into magnificent, delicate shapes; a flock of steel butterflies and brass cranes soon swarmed through the air, spinning and dancing around the two little women.

Anna shouted delightfully and began chasing them, running and leaping in a futile effort to catch one of them in her tiny hands. "This is amazing!"

"Watch this!" Elsa beckoned, and sent a couple of cranes gliding downward toward Anna's slipper-clad feet. Flattening and reforming, the cranes encased the slippers and metamorphosed, developing into a set of wheels. Anna swayed for a minute, unaccustomed to the use of roller skates, and bubbled with giddy laughter as the wheels spun and took her around the room in circles.

Wanting to teach her sister how to use her new skates, Elsa ran across the room, calling over her shoulder, "Follow me!"

Anna obliged as best she could, stumbling over her strange new skates in pursuit of her sister. "Slow down!" she yelled, the wheels spinning faster and faster as she coasted along. The fun soon turned into danger as she realized that she was losing control, and in a panic she yelled, "Elsa, catch me!"

Thinking quickly, Elsa redirected the roller skates and took control, changing Anna's trajectory so she would crash into Elsa's arms. The danger over, Anna breathed deeply and giggled, happy to be alright.

"Are you okay?" Elsa asked her.

"Yes," Anna giggled, "Let's do it again!"

"Maybe later," Elsa wisely suggested, and instead took off the roller skates and let her sister to a pile of something covered over with a tarp. "Let's do something else for a bit."

Anna gasped and her blue eyes danced. "Are we gonna build a robot?"

In answer, Elsa pulled away the tarp and revealed the project they'd been working on in secret for the past month-and-a-half. "I already finished it," she said, "What do you think?"

The thing under the tarp wasn't the prettiest creation out there – in fact, it hardly looked like a person at all. Its noggin was made from tossed-out, discarded brass, a small grating placed on the face of its copper-colored head in the shape of a friendly smile. Its body was barrel-shaped, made from a tiny steel drum that used to hold paste, and from it extended eight long legs fashioned from old metal cable stuffed with wires and cams. To anyone else's child it would have seemed strange, perhaps even frightening, but to Elsa and Anna it was the perfect mechanical playmate.

"I thought we'd name him Olaf."

Anna's mouth hung open in awe until finally the dots connected and she fell to her knees, throwing her arms around the unyeilding canister.

"I love you, Olaf!" she cried with delight, and then turned her head to the side, as if the doll was whispering in her ear. "What's that? You want to fly? Elsa," she announced, "Olaf says he wants to fly. Can we fly?"

In the back of her mind, Elsa felt a little uneasy and frowned. "I don't know..."

"Please...!" Anna pleaded.

"Well..."

Anna pushed Olaf forward and lowered her voice to a gravelly low: "Please..."

"Okay," Elsa laughed, giving into the temptation to make her sister happy, "Just this once. Hold onto Olaf; tightly now!"

Tightening her grip around Olaf's body, Anna watched as her sister summoned up a platform that lifted the pair, girl and metal doll, high up into the air, almost to the roof. Anna looked down for a moment and squeaked with fright, shutting her eyes tight only to open them again out of daring curiosity. After a few moments, she grew used to the bird's-eye view and began shouting happily, "I'm flying! Look, Olaf, we're really flying!"

As Anna sat atop the levitating platform, she failed to notice a few beads of sweat begin to trace down her sister's brow. Determined to not spoil the fun, Elsa continued to hold her in the air as another part of her consciousness began playing with the metal cranes, causing them to fly upward again and encircle the little girl. Anna crowed with happiness and dropped Olaf on the platform, standing up and reaching into the swarm of cranes.

"No!" Elsa warned, fear beginning to take the place of her goodwill, "Anna, sit down! It's not safe!"

Not hearing her sister's cries, Anna continued to reach, further and further away from the safety of the platform's center.

"Anna, wait!"

Her concentration addled by anxiety for Anna, Elsa began to hurry forward without thinking, and the platform began to drop, hurtling downward as Anna screamed.


End file.
